Case study · Automotive AR concept · 2017

Car AR: A car that builds itself on your desk.

Car AR is a concept we built in 2017 to pitch a new kind of marketing to car manufacturers: augmented reality for their showrooms, their printed ads in newspapers and their hoardings. Point an Android phone at the print, and a detailed 3D hatchback assembles itself on the card: wheels slide in, the roof drops down, the doors swing shut and the hood settles. Then you can walk all the way around it, get close to the headlights or look down through the glass at the dashboard.

By Kishore Ravi, founder · Updated 12 November 2026

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Type: AR pitch concept
Pitched to: Car manufacturers
Built: Unity and Vuforia, 2017
Our role: Concept, AR app design and build

Car AR: a white 3D hatchback standing on the printed card

Car AR: the car assembling, doors and roof flying into place

Car AR: close up on the front of the car

01 · The idea

Show the car,not a picture of it.

A printed brochure can only show a car from the angles the photographer chose. Car AR turns a piece of paper into a showroom: the card is the anchor, and the phone becomes a window onto a full 3D car you can circle and inspect.

We built it in 2017 as a working concept to pitch to car manufacturers. The idea: the same print they already pay for, a newspaper ad, a hoarding, a brochure or a showroom standee, becomes the launch pad for a 3D car that buyers can explore on their own phone.

Any print

Newspaper ads, hoardings, brochures and showroom standees. No QR code, just the picture itself.

No buttons

Open the app and point. There is nothing to learn and nothing to tap.

A moment of magic

The car doesn't just appear: it assembles in front of you in just over two seconds.

02 · Try the app

Point the phone,right here.

This rebuilds Car AR in your browser with the app's own 3D car, materials and assembly animation, taken from the Android app itself. Drag on the screen to move the phone around the card, and pinch or scroll to get closer.

Loading Car AR…

Point the phone,
watch it build.

This rebuilds Car AR in your browser with the app's own 3D car, textures and build animation, taken straight from the 2017 Android app. Drag on the screen to move the phone around the card, and pinch or scroll to get closer.

The camera view is a desk drawn live in your browser, and the printed card is a stand-in for the app's original target photo. The car, its materials and its assembly are the app's own.

03 · How it works

Five steps,zero instructions.

The app opens straight into the camera. There is no menu: the printed card is the interface. When the tracker recognises the card, the car's assembly plays and the car stays locked to the print as you move.

Lose the card and the car disappears with it. Point back at it and the finished car is there again, exactly where you left it.

04 · The build

Twenty parts,two seconds.

The assembly is one animation clip of 2.2 seconds that moves 20 parts at once. Each part starts somewhere off the car and finishes in place, so the car seems to put itself together on the card.

The assembly starts: wheels, doors and hood are still apart

Halfway: the doors swing in and the roof comes down

01WheelsAll four slide in sideways onto their hubs.

02DoorsBoth doors start open, one at 25° and one at 45°, then swing shut.

03RoofDrops from high above the car onto the pillars.

04HoodFalls from above and tilts down until it closes.

05Glass and lightsThe windscreen, windows and lamps glide into their frames.

06InteriorThe dashboard drops in before the roof closes over it.

05 · Around the car

Every angle,from a sheet of paper.

Once the car is built you can see it from any side. Move the phone and the car keeps its place on the card, at the right size and angle.

The car from the side, standing on the card

06 · Architecture

One scene,one printed card.

Car AR is a single Unity scene. Vuforia reads every camera frame, finds the printed card and reports its position and angle. The 3D car is attached to the card, so it moves with it and stays the right size. The app's image database holds four target images, and this scene uses one of them.

When the card is found, the car's renderers switch on. When it's lost, they switch off, so the car never floats loose in the room.

01Image targetA single printed photo, like an ad or hoarding, that Vuforia recognises in real time.

02Device databaseTarget images stored in the app, so recognition works without internet.

03Trackable eventsThe car shows when the card is found and hides when it's lost.

04Animator clipOne 2.2-second Assembly clip driving 20 parts and 63 animation curves.

05Detailed modelAbout 16,000 vertices on screen, with 6 textures for body, interior, lights and wheels.

06Video backgroundThe live camera image is drawn behind the 3D scene every frame.

07 · Technology

Unityand Vuforia.

Built in Unity 5.3 with C# and the Vuforia AR SDK, for Android phones from version 4.0 onwards. Built in 2017 as a pitch concept.

Engine

Unity 5.3
C# scripts
Mecanim Animator
Standard shader materials

Vuforia SDK for Unity
Image target tracking
Device target database
Default trackable event handler

18 meshes, wheels reused four times
6 textures
Transparent glass
2.2-second assembly animation

Android

Android 4.0 and later
ARMv7 build
Camera access for AR
Works offline

08 · Where it stands

A workingpitch concept.

Car AR was built in 2017 as a working concept to pitch to car manufacturers, ready to be pointed at a brand's own print: a newspaper ad, a hoarding, a brochure page or a showroom standee.

Done

Built

Image recognition and tracking
3D car with its assembly animation
Android build used for pitches to car manufacturers

The demo above uses the app's own 3D car, materials and assembly animation. The camera view is a desk drawn in your browser, and the printed card is a stand-in for the app's original target photo, which is not ours to republish.